Hello everyone, hope you all are enjoying the summer.

My friend, M.J. Steven finally published his short story We All Die!

It is on Amazon and Smashwords and only 99 cents.

Great story about a young couple who have a tragic life happening.  It turns into a wild ride, so hang on.

Around here we cut limbs out of the way of my antenna and off the roof. Now maybe the roof will last a little longer without all that crap falling on it.

Still haven't painted the house trim, must move that up on the list. Already have paint, just haven't energy to do it.

So, what have you been up to so far this summer?  

We had only two comments last time, how about some more this time.  It is not hard to do.

My book work has been slow, but I hope to speed up the writing soon.

Go below and tell us what you have been doing and will be doing throughout what is left of this summer.

Also, be sure to check out some of the authors on my Facebook page. There are some great ones on there with various type of books published.

Several run contest for free things and books.   Feel free to enter those and like their pages.   You will find several that will fit your reading pleasure.

Until next time,

John

 She Rises at Dawn, Dreamer's Paradise, Hollywood Dream, All in the Family Cruise 

You can find them at Amazon http://tinyurl.com/ma8gd83 and Smashwords.com

http://tinyurl.com/3qtcmhw

It was nice to interview M.J. Steven and to read the drafts of his new eBook We All Die!

I hope when it comes out that you will enjoy it as much as I have.

Less than two weeks before Summer Break starts.  Yea Rah!

Seems the last half of the year has really dragged.

What are your plans for summer?  Leave a message below and tell us.

I am going to work on the big novels and hope to get them re-written.  I have been pushing them onto the back burner too long.

Of course, another short story would be nice too, but no ideas on that yet.

I do have an article for a journal that I would like to get published. Hopefully, I can find a University magazine to publish it. It is about whether Edgar Allan Poe is demonic or not.

Some of my summer will be with the grandkids of course, and the nine-month old one is starting to get more active. It should be fun and a distraction from writing.

The sun is out, the temp is in the 80's, so this will be short.

Please write us and let us know what you plan to do this summer.  Maybe you will give someone an idea that they had not thought of and make their summer for them.

Until next time, I look forward to reading what your plans are.

John

PS:  She Rises at Dawn is doing great in sales for Kobo.  I would like to see some more sales here in the U.S.A.  Thanks!

It is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.com in all reader formats.

(Smashwords covers several different formats for computers and e-readers.)

Amazon:  http://tinyurl.com/dydcatx

Barnes and Noble: http://tinyurl.com/awr4lu3

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JohnPoindexter

Of course, you will also find my other e-Books there as well.

Enjoy!

Hello, well spring is still not here. One weatherman said he expects us to go straight to summer. That is fine with me. I will not fuss about being hot, after this winter.

This week I am talking with the new author M.J. Steven, who has written an eBook titled We All Die! Hello M.J.

M. J. - I am glad to be here John.

-- What made you decide to write this story?

M. J. - Actually it was everything that has been going on over the past few years with all the shootings. I thought it would be a good story on what would happen if one of our military members was driven to revenge, instead of duty.

-- How did you get started writing?

M. J. - I started probably like anyone else, I decided to sit down one day and write out a story that had been brewing in my mind for several weeks. I was not, and still am not, sure it will sell, as it is quite a bloody story. Even with the love story that leads into it, people may not get hooked on it.  I wrote for a few weeks and then put it away. Then pulled it out and let a couple of my closest friends read it. From there it went back into rewriting stage.

-- I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

M. J. - You and they read it and told me that you thought it was a good story. So, I decided to make it better. And that is where I am at today, making it better by adding more to the love story and even to the main plot.

-- Is this type of writing you plan to do or is there other work you would like to try?

M. J. - Crime fiction is one my most enjoyable genres, but someday I may try to write a serious story where the lovers live happy thereafter.

-- What can you tell us about your protagonist James A. Jones?

M. J. - He is your normal high school kid that grows up not knowing what he wants in life, except the girl that he is madly in love with. He is not the rough jock type and we see this when he gets beat up trying to protect his girl after encounter with the local hoods. And like any normal kid he sees a bright future in the new military poster. He decides that they can make him what he wants to be and goes to sign up.

-- It does seem that is what gives him the courage to ask her to marry him. Was that your idea at first, before the story went bloody?

M. J. - Yes, it was. I thought it would be a nice family tale about how he made a man out of himself in the military. It still shows that and more, especially when he gets out.

-- How do you think the type of individual targeted in the story will react to how it plays out?

M. J. - Hopefully, they will realize it is fiction and even though fiction can come true, it is written to entertain, not to be acted out in real life.

-- I want to thank you for letting me read the draft and for talking with me today. Maybe we can chat again when the story comes out in eBook about how it is doing.

M. J. - My pleasure. I enjoyed your eBooks, which is why I decided to go that route with this one. I will be glad to answer any questions you have any time.

-- I do have one more. Have you thought about making this into a video game?

M.J. - Yes, there have been talks with a new company about turning it into a one-person game. We will see where that leads in the future.

-- Thanks again and I hope we can keep in touch.

Well, folks my talk with M. J. Steven was very enjoyable. I cannot wait to see the latest edition of We All Die!

Don't forget to leave your comments down below.

If you have questions for M. J., I will get them answered and place the answer in the comments section.

Until next time, think warm thoughts and hope spring gets here before another snow storm.

John

This is the final installment of Kate Bloomfield's article. I hope you have enjoyed it. And please leave some comments on what you think.

We left off last time with the end of week 7. Here is the rest.

After the 2 months:

 Editing/Proofreading/Formatting

Okay, you've finished your masterpiece, but now you need to fix it. No doubt your book is riddled with mistakes, typos, grammatical errors, and flaws is continuity. (Unless you're some kind of god.) This is the time to check your work and add/edit/delete things you aren't happy with. An initial edit is always recommended before sending your work to a professional to clean it up.

But of course, a professional is highly recommended. They can be a little pricey, however, ranging from 0.004c per word, to as much as 0.02c per word. (That's $1000 for a 50,000 word novel. Most self published writers don't have that kind of money lying around. Right?)

 
Get some BETA readers

Feedback is always important before you start distributing/selling your book on the internet. Get some friends to read over your work and provide honest feedback. Hopefully they'll be honest and tell you what they liked, and didn't like about the book. Now, I know your friends aren't as much of a genius as you, but trust them. They are the general public. What might be clear and concise to you, may actually be confusing to one of a lesser mind.

See that you change some things based on their opinions. Hard, I know. After all, what do they know?
 

Traditional or Digital: The Final Leap

Now is the time to decide which path you wish to distribute your masterpiece. Will you send hundreds of letters to agents/publishing houses, or take the self publishing path like so many others before you? I chose to self publish through Amazon, with good results. I am now working as a full-time writer. (Although I'm still poor.)
 
The Amazon KDP Select program is really simple to use. All you really need to do is format your document to their specifications, and upload it to the site. They do the rest. You'll have your book for sale within 24 hours. Crazy, right?

It's really a matter of preference, and luck if you choose the traditional method of publishing.

Ebooks are becoming increasingly popular. They're cheap, instant, easy to download, and there are MILLIONS of them. But this is also why it is so hard to get noticed. There are hundreds of thousands of authors out there, fighting for attention. It is your job to market your book as hard as you can, get an amazing book cover. (See my blog 'How to design a best-selling book cover' here: LINK) and stir up as much interest as you can. Get twitter, Facebook, a blog, Tumblr, and any other social media you can think of.

PLUG AWAY.

That is it!  Now you know how to do it in 2 months.

I want to thank Kate again for letting me post her wonderful article.

Kate's website: http://www.bloomfieldkate.com/

Now it is your turn to post in the comment area on how your novel is coming along.  Let us hear from you.

Until next time,

John

Hello again,

For the next few Blogs I will be presenting a Guest Blog by Kate Bloomfield on How to write a novel (in 2 months).

Don't forget you can leave a comment or two on this topic.

Kate's website: http://www.bloomfieldkate.com/

Part 2 of How to write a novel (in 2 months)
BY KATE BLOOMFIELD

Day 5-6: Research

Now, I don't know much about 18th century England, apart from what I've seen in movies, so some research was in order. I learned quickly that women in the 1700's were not allowed to own property, so I had to alter my story to fit.
•    Elizabeth cannot inherit Apothecary, so she dresses as a man to obtain it.
There. That's nice and neat, isn't it?
Apart from that, I looked into laws and customs of 18th century England, researching women's roles and traditions. I then started to shape my plot around that. I learned that my character would be considered "strange" if she was not married by the time she reached her twenties. This was useful for a lot of dialogue between mother and daughter. I also found that couples would never be left alone, and always have a chaperone.
 
Day 7 onwards: Composition

Okay, now you've got your story outline in bullet-point format. You've researched the customs of the people/era you're writing about. (Not so important if you've made up your setting entirely). Now you need to break up these bullet-points into finer points. Let's say you had 10 bullet points. Break them up into 20, giving each one more detail and depth. Once you have done this you should be able to clearly see how your chapters will pan out. Think of the bullet points as chapters.

Once you've done this, you're pretty much ready to begin writing, and after only a week! You've got a fully planned story to go ahead and write!

Now, when I wrote 'Passing as Elias' I cheated a little bit, and I do not advise doing this unless you've REALLY got the whole thing planned.
Get ready for it ... I wrote the middle of the book first. Yup, that's right. I took the most interesting/fun bullet points and I wrote those chapters first. It was probably a silly thing to do, but it was super fun. I got to write all of the saucy, sexy, action packed fun bits first, without taking the long and tedious road to get there. Now, this was LARGELY part of the reason why I finished the book so fast: because I was enjoying it. I'd write pages upon pages every day, because I got to write all the good bits first. (I also wrote a majority of this book during work hours at my office job. I'd sneakily type a few paragraphs into an email and send it to myself) Shhhh.

So what happens when you've written all the best bits? Well, it's time to stitch them together, I guess. This is the hard part (if you do what I did) but I did find it got the work done quicker.

Those in between bits are called 'Filler'. Scenes/Conversations/Events that move the story along at an even pace without having one thing happen after another. If you don't have the filler then the book won't flow nicely, it'll be short, and be an absolute mess.

Filler is a good time for you to explore your characters and give them depth during their 'down time'. What does your character do on a Sunday afternoon? Do they have hobbies? Use this time to improve upon your characters relationships. Some of my filler included the following:
•    A funeral (to enhance the characters important relationship with the deceased).
•    A wedding (to enhance her sense of entrapment)
•    Time at a bar (to study the way males behave)
Okay, so now you've written the exciting bits AND the parts in between. Now what? Is your novel finished? No way.
 

I will post more in about two weeks

Until then, remember to write. Also leave a comment.

John